1953. mossadegh nationalizes anglo-iranian oil. britain wants him out. truman said no. eisenhower said yes. allen dulles signed off. kim roosevelt ran TPAJAX from the embassy basement. the actual coup, four days, mostly mob violence paid by agency cash. #cia #classified

1949-1956. project VALUABLE. the agency, with MI6, parachuted albanian émigrés into albania in support of king zog. each team was met by enver hoxha's security forces. philby, briefed on every drop, had been telling moscow. the program ended after dozens of deaths. #cia #classified

1949. george kennan's policy planning staff at state proposes "organized political warfare." the result is OPC, a covert action arm — nominally a state department agency, actually inside the CIA. kennan later said it was the worst recommendation he ever made. #cia #classified

john deutch, DCI 1995-1996. moved to langley from the pentagon and never warmed to the place. he kept classified files on a home computer connected to the internet. lost his clearance over it. clinton pardoned him on his last day in office, january 20, 2001. #cia #classified

february 17, 2003. abu omar, an egyptian cleric, is kidnapped on a milan street by an agency rendition team and flown to cairo. milan prosecutors indicted 23 americans in absentia. seven were convicted in 2009. they remain fugitives in europe — a CIA travel restriction. #cia #classified

november 2002. gul rahman, an afghan detainee, dies of hypothermia at COBALT, a black site outside kabul known internally as the salt pit. he had been chained semi-nude to a concrete floor. the case officer was promoted. no one was ever prosecuted. #cia #classified

september 17, 2001. bush signs a memorandum of notification authorizing the agency to capture and kill al-qaeda. it is the legal foundation of the rendition, detention and interrogation program, and of the drone program. the document is still classified. #cia #classified